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February 8, 2026 - The United Mine Workers of America, or UMWA, had its roots in the Pottsville, Pennsylvania area.
Indeed, some of the earliest labor unions in the country were formed in the region’s coal fields. It might be argued that their influence spread beyond the mines and inspired other unions in the early stages of the American labor movement.
The Pottsville Republican charted the history of early labor organizing in its 100th Anniversary edition, published on Oct. 22, 1984.
The first anthracite miners union was formed in 1849. And the first contract between miners and mine owners was signed in Pottsville on July 29, 1870, the Republican reported.
John Bates organized the Miners and Laborers Benevolent Association, known as the Bates Union, in 1849. It was the first association of miners in the country and conducted the first miners strike.
At the time, working conditions in the mines were abysmal. Cave ins and explosions were common.
Newspapers of the day carried frequent accounts of miners being killed or injured in mining accidents. Medical facilities were primitive.
On top of that, miners lived in company-owned houses and were required to purchase mining equipment, food and the necessities of life from company-owned stores.
The so-called Breaker Boys, some as young as 10, went to work picking slate from coal being processed at collieries.
Immigrants from Ireland and other countries who mined coal weren’t slaves, but it could be argued that they were enslaved.
One of the working class visionaries was John Siney, who formed the Workingman’s Benevolent Association in St. Clair in 1868.
At a time when miners worked from dawn to dusk, Siney proposed an eight-hour workday.
Siney was also instrumental in having a mine safety law passed, and he hammered out a sliding wage scale agreement with coal operators that gave miners 57.5 cents a ton for coal mined.
Typically, miners earned about $16 a week, sometimes for 60 hours work. At the time, coal sold for $3 a ton.
Siney resigned from the WBA in 1873 to become president of the National Miners Association. After that, the WBA folded.
The National Miners Association folded in 1876. It was followed by the Knights of Labor, the Amalgamated Association of Miners of the United States and the National Association of Miners and Mine Laborers.
Members of the federation and Knights of Labor combined to adopt a constitution to govern the United Mine Workers of America at its convention in Columbus, Ohio, in 1890.
Eight years later, the UMWA managed to get an 8-hour workday for some miners, but it wasn’t until 1923 that it was expanded to all miners in the region.
Under John Mitchell, a 28-year-old Scranton native, the UMWA made great strides.
Mitchell led miners to their first great victory in a 1900 strike, leading to increased pay and better working conditions, and embodied the spirit of the Great Strike of 1902.
Perhaps more than anything else, the 1902 strike cemented the UMWA’s legitimacy.
More than 140,000 miners stayed off their jobs from May 14 to Oct. 23 — 163 days — in protest of low pay and working conditions.
A miner at the turn-of-the-century could expect to work 10 hours a day at 14-cents an hour. Because of frequent layoffs, a typical miner’s yearly income was around $300.
A federal investigator send to the region to document child labor found 20,000 boys between 10 and 16 years old working in the mines.
As the strike wore on, the nation faced a coal shortage.
President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt intervened, threatening to take over the mines with federal troops, and the strike was settled. Striking miners returned to work on Oct. 23, 1902.
Roosevelt’s action was the first time a U.S. president intervened as a neutral party to settle a strike, rather than sending in troops to settle it.
“The Strike of 1902 established the UMWA as a prominent force in the anthracite industry and in the labor movement as well,” the Republican reported.
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